Using dealer’s quotes and transactions prices on straight industrial bonds, we investigate the determinants of credit spread changes. Variables that should in theory determine credit spread changes have rather limited explanatory power. Further, the residuals from this regression are highly cross-correlated, and principal components analysis implies they are mostly driven by a single common factor. Although we consider several macroeconomic and financial variables as candidate proxies, we cannot explain this common systematic component. Our results suggest that monthly credit spread changes are principally driven by local supply0 demand shocks that are independent of both credit-risk factors and standard proxies for liquidity.

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This paper analyzes the impact of unanticipated changes in the Federal funds target on equity prices, with the aim of both estimating the size of the typical reaction, and understanding the reasons for the market’s response. On average over the May 1989 to December 2001 sample, a “typical ” unanticipated 25 basis point rate cut has been associated with a 1.3 percent increase in the S&P 500 composite index. The estimated response varies considerably across industries, with the greatest sensitivity observed in cyclical industries like construction, and the smallest in mining and utilities. Very little of the market’s reaction can be attributed to policy’s effects on the real rate of interest or future dividends, however. Instead, most of the response of the current excess return on equities can be traced to policy’s impact on expected future excess returns. JEL codes: E44, G12. 1

I use a vector autoregressive model (VAR) to decompose an individual firm’s stock return into two components: changes in cash-flow expectations (i.e., cash-flow news) and changes in discount rates (i.e., expected-return news). The VAR yields three main results. First, firm-level stock returns are mainly driven by cash-flow news. For a typical stock, the variance of cash-flow news is more than twice that of expected-return news. Second, shocks to expected returns and cash flows are positively correlated for a typical small stock. Third, expected-return-news series are highly correlated across firms, while cash-flow news can largely be diversified away in aggregate portfolios.

A typical household has a home mortgage as its most significant financial contract. The form of this contract is correspondingly important. This paper studies the choice between a fixed-rate (FRM) and an adjustable-rate (ARM) mortgage. In an environment with uncertain inflation, a nominal FRM has risky real capital value whereas an ARM has a stable real capital value. However an ARM can increase the short-term variability of required real interest payments. This is a disadvantage of the ARM for a household that faces borrowing constraints and has only a small buffer stock of financial assets. The paper uses numerical methods to solve a life-cycle model with risky labor income and borrowing constraints, under alternative assumptions about available mortgage contracts. While an ARM is generally an attractive form of mortgage, a household with a large mortgage, risky labor income, high risk aversion, a high cost of default, and a low probability of moving is less likely to prefer an ARM. The paper also considers an inflation-indexed FRM, which removes the wealth risk of the nominal FRM without incurring the income risk of the ARM, and is therefore a superior vehicle for household risk management. The welfare gain from mortgage

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We analyze the effects of money injections on interest rates and exchange rates when agents must pay a Baumol-Tobin style fixed cost to exchange bonds and money. Asset markets are endogenously segmented because this fixed cost leads agents to trade bonds and money infrequently. When the government injects money through an open market operation, only those agents that are currently trading absorb these injections. Through their impact on these agents’ consumption, these money injections affect real interest rates and real exchange rates. The model generates the observed negative relation between expected inflation and real interest rates as well as persistent liquidity effects in interest rates and volatile and persistent exchange rates. Keywords: liquidity effects, Baumol-Tobin model, volatile real exchange rates, term structure of interest rates, fixed costs

This paper explores liquidity movements in stock and Treasury bond markets over a period of more than 1800 trading days. Cross-market dynamics in liquidity are documented by estimating a vector autoregressive model for liquidity (that is, bid-ask spreads and depth), returns, volatility, and order flow in the stock and bond markets. We find that a shock to quoted spreads in one market affects the spreads in both markets, and that return volatility is an important driver of liquidity. Innovations to stock and bond market liquidity and volatility prove to be significantly correlated, suggesting that common factors drive liquidity and volatility in both markets. Monetary expansion increases equity market liquidity during periods of financial crises, and unexpected increases (decreases) in the federal funds rate lead to decreases (increases) in liquidity and increases (decreases) in stock and bond volatility. Finally, we find that flows to the stock and government bond sectors play an important role in forecasting stock and bond liquidity. The results establish a link between “macro ” liquidity, or money flows, and “micro ” or transactions liquidity.

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Credit Management for help with the data. We are also grateful for helpful comments to participants at a University of Verona conference and a seminar at the Q-Group. We are responsible for all remaining errors.